By Joel Thurtell
Sidney Gilman’s Alzheimers research colleagues at the University of Michigan see some kind of “riddle” in their mentor and erstwhile hero’s parleying expert medical credentials into $1,000-an-hour consulting fees while serving as director of UM’s Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.
Where’s the riddle?
It was all about money.
The jig’s up for Dr. Gilman. He crossed the line into illegal territory, it is said, when he passed drug test results to investors before releasing them to the public. That gave his off-campus employer, SAC Capital, time to dump $700 million in Elan and Wyeth stock before other traders found out that the Alzheimer’s drug being tested was a dud. SAC Capital avoided $276,000,000 in losses thanks to Dr. Gilman’s timely tip.
Now that Dr. Gilman’s inside information racket is in the news, he’s retired, and the good doctor never existed as far as UM is concerned.
According to The New York Times, “The University of Michigan, where he was a professor for decades, has erased any trace of him on its Web sites, and is now reviewing its consulting policy for employees, a spokesman said.”
As long as UM is in erasure mode, there’s another abomination I’d like to see them wipe out.
That would be UM President Mary Sue Coleman’s annual $230,000 earnings as a board member for Big Pharm firm Johnson & Johnson.*
Doesn’t she make enough — $585,000 a year in 2011 — as UM’s president? She’s the fifth-highest paid university president in the country.**
Her $230,000 from the drug company makes Dr. Gilman’s extracurricular 100 grand a year seem downright second-rate.
What’s the difference between Dr. Gilman collecting grand-an-hour fees from financial firms and Mary Sue cashing in on almost a quarter mil from J & J?
The Times quoted University of Pennsylvania cardiovascular researcher Dr. Garret A. FitzGerald: “What is the argument for sanctioning your full-time faculty, using your brand name, to advise the financial sector? What’s the public good there?”
Dr. FitzGerald should have said, “financial AND pharmaceutical sectors.”
What, indeed, is the public good in presidential moonlighting?
Dr. Gilman was second fiddle.
Mary Sue sets the tune.
* Presidetn COleman’s Wikipedia listing notes that she still serves on the J & J board.
** It’s not clear whether the $742,000 total earnings reported for Coleman by CNN Money in 2006 include the Johnson & Johnson pay.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
